Cornflakes_91 wrote:Aaaaaaand Baile got an eternal place in the steam patchlogs

Heh.

I forgot to extol the new map as well. Not flashy high production a la NMS, but it is easily readable and navigable, and bestowed with all the appropriate hyperlinks and labels.

There was something else.. oh yeah, card games (gambling) and arm wrestling contests in the bars are a nice touch, and ordering drinks is now included as a small but useful cog in the dialogue.
I say dialogue because it's actually rather convincingly a proper exchange in most cases. No longer is it all dreary bombing of the poor targeted npc with generic 'small talk' and endless boasts of how you were good at crafts in school or met so-and-so relative years ago. The player has advantages, yes (namely, a perfect instinct for what topics and subjects will gain or cost favour with the npc), but the other can and often will react with an interjection of his or her own relevant subjects & topics, and the player must both adapt to as well as try to anticipate these interjections to sustain the conversation.

Baile nam Fonn wrote:
Baile!! You are a monster!
You made me buy it!
I am !supposed! to be on a budget!

Oops.
I wasn't trying to sell anything, I'm just gushing about a game that I like.

... Well you did, I hope you are happy.

EDIT:: seeing as there are no further posts, I shall avoid a double post.

A little into the game, and I see much promise.
Unfortunately the steam screenshots belie the game itself.

I'll refrain from premature evaluation, but the game looks and feels good.
One thing I want to see added: in the character creation, could we filter potential parents by traits?
Allow me to select parents based on renown, wealth, physical prowess... etc.

Silverware wrote:I'll refrain from premature evaluation, but the game looks and feels good.
One thing I want to see added: in the character creation, could we filter potential parents by traits?
Allow me to select parents based on renown, wealth, physical prowess... etc.

I think I am going to enjoy this.

Ooh, that is a good suggestion!

I just figured out why I couldn't load my saves from 1.1: they didn't happen in the first place. I had run my drive C:\ completely out of free space. How embarrassing!

I love role playing an amateur historian in Sol Trader; choosing someone from the notable persons list in the beginning, usually dead for over a hundred years, and then trying to unearth the stories and interesting people connected to them. Alternatively I'll usually work toward reconciling or reuniting with some estranged family member or old friend that moved away.

Silverware wrote:
Unfortunately the steam screenshots belie the game itself.

Oh, interesting. Do you mean the game is better than the screenshots make it appear, or that the screenshots aren't telling the truth about the game? I'm keen to get this right.

Silverware wrote:
One thing I want to see added: in the character creation, could we filter potential parents by traits?
Allow me to select parents based on renown, wealth, physical prowess... etc.

Great suggestion - thanks.

Baile nam Fonn wrote:I love role playing an amateur historian in Sol Trader; choosing someone from the notable persons list in the beginning, usually dead for over a hundred years, and then trying to unearth the stories and interesting people connected to them. Alternatively I'll usually work toward reconciling or reuniting with some estranged family member or old friend that moved away.

Love this!

Victor Tombs wrote:I'm seeing lots of update action from you Chris.

It's rather nice.

Still really committed to the project. I don't think we've reached tipping point with the game yet, and there's a few missing features still that will really help give the gameplay a boost.

chrismdp wrote:Oh, interesting. Do you mean the game is better than the screenshots make it appear, or that the screenshots aren't telling the truth about the game? I'm keen to get this right.

Mostly that... they are of the graphics, which don't really show you anything of the gameplay.
A couple of gameplay videos is your best bet. Short ones, focusing on the social aspect.
It's unfortunate but any gameplay screenshot you can take doesn't really represent the tone of the game well at all.

I'm not sure it's right to call Sol Trader a "social interaction simulator."

But maybe that's now close enough to being true that it could benefit from actively collecting user stories: "What's the craziest thing you've seen happen in Sol Trader?" sort of thing.

I see that sharing of stories as possibly the most important reason for the success of The Sims. If so, then maybe it's not too crazy to imagine Sol Trader also benefiting from highlighting this emergent storytelling.